In the production of sausages, care must be exercised in cutting a strand of sausage into links. If the casing for the sausage is damaged or fractured during the cutting operation, the meat emulsion in the core of the strand will escape and the adjacent sausages will be destroyed. This is particularly true in a strand formed by a coextrusion process where the casing is not a separate disposable casing material, but is a coagulated layer of edible material.
It is therefore a principal object of this invention to provide a method and apparatus to precrimp a strand of sausage at the proposed link points prior to cutting to pre-condition or pre-shape the link points for readiness for the cutting process.
It is a further object of this invention to pre-shape the proposed link points for the sausage strand to relocate the meat emulsion at those points to relieve the sausage pressure on the casing that is to be cut.
These and other objects will be apparent to those skilled in the art.